“Don’t you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are.”
~Lady Gaga

Just last week a young boy, Jamey Rodemeyer, who was only fourteen years old, committed suicide. He had been taunted and bullied for years because he wasn’t sure of his sexuality and he was different and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was a huge fan of Lady Gaga, whose main mission through her music is to promote acceptance and being proud of who you are and the differences that you may bring to the table in any circumstance. There is no acceptable reason for someone, or a group of people to single certain individuals out because of who they are and because they don’t fit the general mold that society sets for any one person. There is a reason why God created us all to be different and not to be copies of everyone around us.

We live in a world where appearances are everything and where being different is not rewarded but rather ridiculed and condemned. People whose lifestyles are not the same as others are treated like they are diseased. Those that are unique and creative are made to feel as if there is something wrong with them because their mind thinks differently than the average person’s. Simply put if people do not know what to make of you, then you are too different for them to accept.

Bullying is a nationwide issue. It’s not just happening in one city or even just one state. People are literally killing themselves to get away from those that are bullying them. It should never come to that. Fourteen and fifteen year old children should not feel that they have no other way to escape the judgment of others just because they are their own person and don’t strive to be a carbon copy of everyone else around them.

When someone writes an eloquent book that touches people’s hearts and souls, maybe even one that causes them to make particular changes in their lives, then the words are powerful and meaningful. However, when someone uses their words to pick at and ridicule someone and goes to the extent of bullying them, then all of a sudden people’s excuse is ‘their just words, they don’t mean anything’. So which one is it? Words are powerful or words don’t mean anything? Well coming from someone who knows all too well what it feels like to be bullied, words do mean something. They hold the same amount of power for the negative as they would for the positive, perhaps even more so.

Words can hurt. No matter how many people think that what they say shouldn’t greatly affect someone else’s life, chances are, they do. Sometimes what a person says can shape the rest of someone else’s life. Perhaps those individuals out there that feel the need to condemn someone else for being themselves should take a much harder look inside. Who is it that you are trying to be? Until next time…Be who are, it’s the way that God intended you to be!

“I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.”
~Lady Gaga

I was talking to Ms. L the other night and we were reminiscing about T.V. show theme songs from back in the 90’s and before you knew it we were googling some of those theme songs and singing along with them into the wee hours of the morning. We went from the Mary Tyler Moore show, All in the Family, and Good Times, to Growing Pains, Family Matters, and Friends. There were many more and perhaps even a CD of theme songs may have been involved but I won’t run down the entire list. In between singing these songs together, we even shared common gripes about the fact that it seems as though most of the TV shows now do not have theme songs and how we missed them.

I realized, somewhere between Perfect Strangers and Laverne and Shirley, that the difference between television shows then and now is that the writers seemed to want their shows to be graced with theme songs that were motivating and that uplifted their audiences into believing in themselves and in their dreams. The songs promoted family unity and families supporting one another through good times and bad, and through the things they want to accomplish. Now there are no theme songs, just a flash of music in the beginning of the shows and sometimes a few words to the beat of a random song, but no real theme song. No real promotion of family unity or uplifting of the spirit. It’s almost as if the writers of the shows stopped caring, along with the rest of the world, of the spirit of the people that watch their shows.

The theme shows from before were large reasons that I watched those shows in the first place. The songs would get me motivated and before the show even began I was rooting for those people, for their dreams, and for their family. I got valuable lessons from those promotions of family unity and the empowerment of following your dreams through the music of the theme songs. So when did they stop feeling the need to inspire the audience and to motivate and uplift them? When did the writers of the T.V. shows stop realizing that we still need that push and that empowerment, even if it is in the simple form of a song at the beginning of a show?

Sometimes it is the littlest things that can give someone the inspiration they need to do something different. The writers of these television shows may just see it as an insignificant theme song that cost too much for just that one minute sound bite, but that one minute sound bite might be just what that one person in their intended audience needs to hear. It might be what gets them moving and gets them motivated and lights a fire under them to do something great. That one minute sound bite is more than worth what it cost if it incites someone to be better and be greater than what they were before they sat down to watch their show.

In one of her blog posts, Ms. L said that we sometimes think that with us just being one person, what we do doesn’t count and that it doesn’t make a difference. But one person actually can make a difference and even when you might not think that what you say or do is affecting someone else, there’s a great chance that it is in fact touching someone else’s life in some way. Those writers of television shows may not think anything of the theme songs of the shows in television history and may not consider it worth their time or money to go that extra mile to find or create something that will incite inspiration but I would assure them that those songs mattered and they meant something and if anything it made people more drawn to watch. Just as everything a person does matters, what they don’t do also speaks volumes. Until next time…Do what you do best, even when you think no one will care or is paying attention; chances are that someone is watching!

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.”
~Albert Camus

Today I am deeply saddened by the unjust execution of Troy Davis last night at11:08pm. For a moment there it was a small glimmer of hope that people that are a part of this so-called justice system would do the decent thing, the right thing, and stay his execution. But nevertheless shortly after10:00pm the Supreme Court unanimously decided not to even give a thought to the fact that the man that they were about to put to death was more than likely innocent. They cared more about saving face and not having to admit that they were wrong then the life of this man and his family.

They claim that their reasoning had everything to do with giving closure to the family of the victim but I don’t understand how closure can come from the real killer being allowed to still walk the streets free and the life of yet another innocent person is gone. What will they say when Troy Davis’s family does in fact dig deeper and they do discover that they got it wrong? Do they think that sorry is going to help the suffering that his family now has to feel? Or are they just so blinded by their need to have been right about his conviction that they couldn’t see fit to entertain the possibility that they were wrong.

I’m not going to go into the exact details of the case because I would just get more enraged at the clear evidence that he was innocent, but I will just say that last night might have been the very first time that I was not proud to be an American. The death penalty is wrong to begin with for so many reasons; one being that just because a person takes another’s life doesn’t give the government the right to play God and do the same. More than anything the death penalty is wrong because too many times they get it wrong.

I shed a few tears last night for Troy Davis, for his family, but also for the victim’s family because they think that they’ve gotten some kind of closure and justice when this is anything but. I hate feeling powerless and as if there is nothing I can do to make things in this world better for me and for my daughter and for her future children.

I think what also saddened me that much more was the statement from President Obama, or the White House rather, that it would have been inappropriate for him to weigh in and share his thoughts and his opinion. I think that it was actually inappropriate for him not to say something, as the President of THIS country. He cares more about the end result in another country than the life of an innocent man being executed here in this one. I am completely disgusted with the legal system in this country that is supposed to provide justice. After this I don’t know why anyone would ever put their faith in it again.

Even in Troy Davis’ last words he proclaimed his innocence and asked that they keep looking into his case so that they can find out the truth of what happened. He even asked God to bless the men who were ending his life and that God would have mercy on their souls. I guess we should take a page from his book when thinking about all of the people who actually had the power to do the right thing and pray for them and for their souls. It’s just a shame when you have the power to make things right and you blatantly choose not to. Until next time…Fight for what you believe in until you don’t have any more fight left!

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.”
~Desmond Tutu

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

~Jan Glidewell

The other night I was talking to Ms. L and I was feeling a little down because I had a lot of things on my mind. I was thinking of all the curveballs that I have been thrown in life. I was doing a lot of wondering about what could have been.

What if I had done what I was supposed to do all the way through high school and had been able to get a full scholarship to the college of my choice inNew York? What if when I did go to college, not necessarily the one that I wanted to go to, and I had been better prepared for college life and had gotten the grades that I should’ve gotten or at least sought help when I was failing? What if I hadn’t gotten in a really bad relationship and gotten so steered off course from what my vision of my life was? What if I hadn’t met a man who I thought was the love of my life and had a child with him which derailed me going back to school until the late age of 27?

The truth is my life would more than likely be at a very different place, maybe even where I envisioned it being. Had I done all the things that I should’ve done in the correct time frame that it should have been done in I may very well already be into my writing career and perhaps even a lot closer to the top of that media mogul ladder that I am now struggling to climb. But in talking to Ms. L. the other night she helped me to see that everything does in fact happen for a reason and that just because the course of my journey has had to change, the vision has always remained the same and that’s what matters the most.

If I had never been directed to Morgan State University (which was not the school I had always wanted to attend) then I would’ve never met Ms. L. and I can not imagine going through this life without a friend as good as her and as supportive and motivating as her. If I hadn’t met the man who I thought was the love of my life, then I would not have my amazing daughter and I can not even begin to say how thankful I am for her and I wouldn’t trade her for all the money and success in the world.

So many of the things that I have been through are responsible for shaping the person I am today. But in all of that my vision of what I wanted in terms of my career goals and what I feel God put me on this earth to do have never changed. I have never questioned what I am meant to do. Now I may not have answered all of the previous doors that opportunity was knocking at, and looking back perhaps those doors were not meant for me to answer, but I certainly believe that there are still more opportunities out there that I may just have to build my own door to.

What could have been in anyone’s life is not always how things should’ve been and I firmly believe that God knows your path before you even develop a path in your own mind. So who am I to question what could have been when God already has a plan for what will be and the least that I can do, after all he has seen me through and all the talents and abilities that he has blessed me with, is follow the path that he has mapped out for me, not the one that I had mapped out for myself. Until next time…Don’t get sidetracked by the curveballs, just change your plan of how to attack them the next time you’re up to bat!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.”

~ Marianne Williamson

I was listening to a clip the other day of a speech that author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert gave discussing the need to nurture creativity and to dismiss the automatic assumption that all writers, or creative types in general, are tortured souls. I hadn’t realized until I watched this clip just how much I had always bought into that myth in the past and in some ways had fueled my creative ability behind it.

Now it’s not that I would be any less of a writer if I didn’t have a terrible childhood where I grew up with no father and a very angry and all around abusive mother. In my case I think that my bad childhood was indeed the fuel behind my early beginnings as a writer. But I think that sometimes I got it into my head that if I wasn’t going through hard times and struggling to find my footing then I wasn’t a true writer. However, I’ve realized that in the most recent years, when it comes to my writing, pain and suffering actually stifles my creativity rather than enhances it. I feel more of a fluid movement of words when I am optimistic about things and when things seem to be going in the right direction.

It’s always been projected that writers, artists’, and creative like minded people have this angst and anguish, this pain that lies behind their genius. So does that mean that these creative people can not produce greatness without their individual tragedies? You hear of great writers and poets like Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolfe, Edgar Allan Poe, and so many others who have had such tragic lives and their own demons to deal with and they dealt with them through their art. However, if they were truly meant to be artists’ would it have mattered if their lives were happy and filled with never-ending promise?

You write something today that’s a fictional story of tragedy and suffering and undoubtedly one of the first questions that someone will ask you is “Is this a true story.” It’s as if our minds can not possibly come up with a story that is brilliant and filled with drama and tragic events that is not our own actual reality. They do after all call it fiction for a reason.

My daughter has a great talent brewing for writing and my best friend’s son is a movie director in the making who also has a great love for writing and they are not tortured souls. They don’t have some tragic incident that has happened to them to suddenly make them begin to use writing as their source for directing the pain. Why can’t there be writer’s who have come from a happy childhood and have experienced wonderful experiences throughout their whole lives?

Why can’t writer’s, or any creative individual for that matter, not have that label of alcoholic, or drug addict, or suicidal that can be placed on them at any point in their career? Why must writers, past, present, or future, be afraid of being doomed simply because they are doing what they feel they were put on this earth to do? I would like to think that our future generations of artists don’t have to have that cloud of darkness hanging over their head simply because they wanted to explore their creativity. Are we really only as great as our greatest tragedies or could it be possible that our tragedies are what strengthen the talent that is to be our greatness? Until next time…don’t ever allow yourself to feel doomed for doing what God put you hear to do!

Write 2 Be Magazine, produced by LadyBug Press and set to debut in January 2012, will be designed to give writers and artists a broad platform to showcase their work and share their experiences in dealing with the ins and outs of both the creative and business side of writing and the publishing industry.

Write 2 Be Magazine is looking for writers to make submissions of poetry (including clips of spoken word performances), short stories, articles, personal essays, and book reviews. Currently we are a non-paying market and can only compensate you with exposure and the opportunity to touch thousands of lives with just the click of a mouse.

If you are interested in joining the community of writers that will make up Write 2 Be Magazine please feel free to e-mail any submissions and/or inquiries to write2bemagazine@yahoo.com. We look forward to hearing from you and wish you the best in all of your writing endeavors.

“Being fearless isn’t being 100% unafraid; it’s being terrified, but you jump in anyway!”

~Taylor Swift

I was watching an interview the other night on Lady GaGa and her rise to fame and her upbringing. I was excited to watch this interview because while I am a fan of her music, I am an even greater fan of her business savvy and her work ethic. She has certainly made a name for herself and her story didn’t start off that much different from other people that have a particular dream growing up. Of course her upbringing was different in terms of the fact that she probably had a lot more things in the pros column than the cons but the struggle to achieve her dream was still there.

What I love and can appreciate most about her is her bravery and her fearlessness. She has never been and still isn’t afraid to do anything when it comes to accomplishing her dreams and she seems to jump head first into everything without ever really looking back. Watching the interview I found myself wishing that I had that same fearlessness and bravery, both as a child growing up and especially now.

So many times I had opportunities when I was younger to maybe go to some poetry event or open mic night and read some of my poetry or even sing (because I could actually sing a lot better when I was younger) but I was too afraid. Afraid to be on stage in front a crowd full of people, afraid that they wouldn’t like my poetry or like my voice, afraid that I somehow would not be good enough and that maybe the talent that I thought I had was all made up in my head and that no one else would share the same thought. I wasted so much time on all of the cons and I missed out on all of the pros, all because I wasn’t fearless enough.

I guess it’s too late to wonder what could’ve and might’ve been if I had just been brave enough to jump head first into any number of the things that I wanted to do. The only thing left to do now is strive to be brave and fearless from this point on. After watching the interview I was wondering aloud to my best friend, was it just simply too late for me to do the things that I really wanted. I mean I’m 31 now and I’m not getting any younger and my dreams aren’t becoming any more attainable as time goes by. She told me (being the voice of reason that she always seems to be) that it’s never too late as long as I still have the ability and the passion to do those things that I want to do.

That voice of fear was in my ear yet again but this time I don’t plan on feeding into it. I’ve wasted too much time already and now it’s time for me to be brave, and yes even fearless. So how brave and fearless are you willing to be for your dreams? Until next time…Be brave, don’t give yourself anything else to regret!

“If a woman is sufficiently ambitious, determined and gifted – there is practically nothing she can’t do.”

~Helen Lawrenson

I would like to think that I have an ambitious nature. Whether it is a low level of ambition or I am overly ambitious varies depending upon what day it is. I think that might just be my problem. With the things that I want out of this life and what I would like to accomplish as far as my career goals, I can not afford to have too many of days of underachievement where I don’t even reach the standard that I have set for myself.

On my accountability list that I emailed to my best friend last night of the goals that I need to accomplish this week I actually added to the number of things to get done this week. The first week my list had 8 items, the second it had 9, and this week it has 12. The way I see it, the more I expect of myself, the more I am likely to get accomplished.

Now I realize this method might not work every week but I am trying to get myself to that level where I don’t have weeks of underachievement, just weeks where I have tackled all of my ambitions head on and achieved them without fail. Now I am not so unrealistic as to think that every single week I am going to be able to actually check off everything on that list but nothing beats a failure but a try.

My message to those out there that might think that they are being a bit too ambitious (or unrealistic), don’t listen to that voice in your mind that is telling you that. Having higher expectations of yourself enables you to keep yourself on your toes and to raise your own bar. So how high are you willing to set your bar? Leave me a comment and tell me, what are some of the ways you make sure to hold yourself accountable for you goals? Well I guess I better go get started on that long list I have for this week. Until next time…stay on your toes!

I was so engulfed in trying to be productive and finish my goal list for this week that I almost forgot to do this blog post which is also on my list of goals. So I thought I would share some time management tips that may help those writers out there are that are trying to figure out how to deal with their everyday busy lives and incorporate writing into that mix. Hope some of these tips are helpful to you.

Publicize your writing goals- Tell your friends and family, even your kids, what your goals are that you need to accomplish for the week, or for the month. Put a list of those goals up on the bulletin board in front of your desk (because all writers should have one) or on a post it note and stick it on your computer. If you have a blog share some of those goals with your readers. This will help you to hold yourself accountable to the tasks you set out to achieve because if you don’t, now someone else will.

Do the more time consuming tasks first- You may be tempted to check all the smaller things off your list first but none of those smaller things help you to accomplish the few bigger things on that list then you may still get to the end of the week with those things unfinished and it will feel less gratifying. If you knock the big things out of the way you will feel more accomplished by the end of the week.

Be flexible- You will probably never complete an entire writing project without having something go wrong along the way, or not necessarily wrong, just not as you originally planned them to go. Make some back up plans for when things get thrown off track. This will help you to bounce back quicker than you would if you were just left without some sense of knowing what to do next.

Track where your time goes- Often times we don’t even know where the time goes or what we have done with that time. If this is the case with you, it may be beneficial to chart out your day and make notes of what you do and when. See where you can cut some things out that may not be so necessary in order for you to implement for time for writing.

Just Say No- Distractions are just a part of life and for a writer it is often that people will dismiss your need to actually sit down and write. They expect you to always be available to talk or go out and it’s hard to say no and justify why you’re not spending time with them so you can write. If you start telling them NO and letting them know that this is something serious for you and that it matters, they will eventually get the message and respect your craft. But you have to say No first.

I hope that some of these tips are helpful to you. I am still working on practicing some of them myself. Well I better get back to my craft now. Until next time…be blessed!

“The best way to get approval is not to need it! Focus on being the best you and the rest will take care of itself.”

~Chris Gardner

It is natural for people to want to seek approval from others. More often than not it is of the one’s that are immediately around you, like your friends and family. We want them to accept us and to be proud of us and to support us in our endeavors and always encourage our ambitions. When we don’t get that support and that approval, especially from family, we are crushed.

As hard as we may try to hide it and act as if it doesn’t really matter that they don’t get our goals and that they don’t approve of the path we chose, it matters. It begins to feel like if the one’s you love and are supposed to be able to look to for support can’t be there for you then everyone must be against you. However, the problem isn’t them for not approving the goals we put forth; the problem is us for depending on the approval of anyone but ourselves to begin with.

On the journey towards being successful in our dreams and or passions the focus has to be us; what we think, what we approve of, and what we demand of ourselves. At some point we are going to have to realize that seeking the approval of anyone else is only going to be our downfall. People spend so much time trying to do what others expect of them and trying to be perfect in order to fit someone else’s standards. What they should be focused on is meeting their own standards and not so much on being perfect but on being the best that they can be for themselves.

Trying to be what everyone else wants you to be can become exhausting and it wastes entirely too much time and energy that can be better spent. If the people around you are making you feel as if you aren’t meeting their expectations, then you need to reevaluate who it is that you are surrounding yourself with and if they are really what you need to be focused on. I know, easier said then done.

It’s hard to let go of that need to be accepted and I know because I’m still working on the letting go part. But I am starting to realize that all the time that I’ve wasted trying to seek approval and be accepted could’ve been time that went into actually accomplishing the very things that I sought approval for. So today you should stop and ask yourselves, whose approval is that you really need? Theirs, or your own. Until next time…Be the best you that you can possibly be and everyone else will just have to follow suit!